Google's building an iPad-killer

Eric Schmidt is telling friends that Google is building its own tablet. It will presumably run Android.

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Google's Chrome OS will be aimed squarely at the operating system market

Google is supposed to deliver a Chrome operating system later this year. It will be different than Android. It will be designed for netbooks. As such, it is a big torpedo coming after Apple's OS.

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Walt Mossberg will eventually declare an Android phone better than the iPhone (right?)

This one feels inevitable, doesn't it? Apple has one heck of a phone in the iPhone. But that's all it is -- one phone.

Android software is being sprayed across so many handsets that eventually one of the handsets will deliver an experience better than the iPhone. When that day comes and Walt Mossberg pens the words "Android has finally delivered a phone that is better than the iPhone," expect steam to come out of Steve Jobs's ears.

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Apple will boot Google Maps

In a research note released in late March, Gene Munster wrote that Apple will eventually have its own maps offering.

He thinks that surrending maps to Google means giving up location data, one of the key components of a mobile platform. Gene sees Apple acquiring a map data provider like Europa Technologies.

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Apple may also boot Google Search from the iPhone and replace it with Bing

There's a lot of chatter that Bing could take the default spot on the iPhone as the search engine in Safari. Most analysts we've read don't think this happens this year, if at all. But it seems likely someday.

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Apple could build its own search engine, providing its biggest threat to Google

An even bigger attack on Google would be Apple building its own search engine. It sounds strange, considering we've heard Apple gets $100 million annually from Google for search, but Gene Munster Piper's Apple analyst says he thinks there's a 70% chance that Apple builds its own search engine in the next five years.

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Apple and Google will start stealing important employees from each other

For a long time Apple and Google were reported to have a secret non-poaching pact. Apple wouldn't pluck Google's employees. Google wouldn't go after Apple employees.

If that existed, it's over now. Apple stole away RJ Pittman from Google earlier this year. Eventually one of these companies will pluck someone big.

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Apple and Google will battle over the TV set

Google is building an Android-based set-top box software with Intel and Sony, the New York Times reports. Through this, users will be able to do web stuff and watch television.

Apple has its own TV offering, Apple TV, which so far has bombed. Despite this, Piper analyst Gene Munster thinks Apple's next big move should be in the television market. If Apple builds its own TVs or steps up its television efforts, this will be another spot where the two companies butt heads.

There will be a brutal M&A battle, but we don't know what it's going to be...

We've ticked off nine battles we can see coming. Obviously, there will be more that we miss. Our best guess is that it happens in the M&A world.

Apple already stole Lala away from Google after Google stole AdMob from Apple. We think there's more battles coming, probably related to cloud computing services on some level. Although, now that Apple is an advertising company, the two could fight for something in that arena.